The Troll

Last night I played in a friend's game with his family and children.  I had a lot more fun than I thought I would have and saw the game in action from a different side, the player's side.  I also was able to see the game in terms of running into an encounter where the players were outmatched and what happens then.  

We were entering the Caves of Chaos.  We were third level and although we were higher level than we were supposed to be when we entered the adventure in the first iteration of the module I was expecting it to be harder.  I was playing a ranger and I was playing smart and scouting ahead of the party.  So I discovered a whole bunch of tracks and all of them leading in and out of the area.  I also saw a whole bunch of cave mouths and some of them obscured by trees.  I thought that we should be careful and approach the caves with caution.    Since one was obscured from the front I thought that one was the best one to enter so our movement would be hidden.  The others thought this was a good idea.  We entered the cave and found a lot of bones, piles of them, hundreds of bodies and a giant skull as a totem on a pole out front.  We snuck inside ignoring the warning signs and looked around.  Inside e cave there was a single giant humanoid sleeping.  It had green skin and wiry black hair and a pointy nose.  It was asleep, and we though, why not?  We did not know what it was so…, besides it was asleep. Best condition to find a scary monster.  So we got the heavy armoured people up close and the squishes further off.  And we waited.  The Dwarf fighter hit the beast and woke it up and we all poured on the attacks.  I had put a Hunter's Mark on it so when I hit it I did d8+d6+d8 for colossus slayer ability with my bow.  It would have been nicer if I had hit it more than once.  Still it was for 16 points of damage.  

I knew it was a troll, but my character did not.  It was funny because we were talking to one of the NPCs and he was telling us how to fight a troll, but it was not supposed to be foreshadowing.  We were not supposed to fight a troll. They could have killed us, one attack per character.  But that is not what happened.  Instead we defeated the troll without injury.  It took three rounds of combat.  The bard kept using spells that caused the troll to run with fear or attack with disadvantage.  And we used fire attacks every round.  Burning hands, flame bolt and the such.  Soon we were looking at a burning corpse.  We later dropped the head in the hands of the keep's Castellan as proof of our seriousness.

We were uninjured and so we thought we would continue.  There was a secret door and we spotted it, but it was locked from the other side.  Luckily the Bard had a knock spell and he door opened and we found eight goblins playing together.  Two encounters where we had surprise so we took advantage of it and sprang into action.  I shot one dead and cut off their retreat, and the others used spells to incinerate them.  It was all over in one round.  No one was injured.  We thought that we were going to find the troll's treasure behind e secret door, but it was not there, instead there was a dungeon behind it, so we retreated and looked for its treasure.  There was one place we did not look, in the pool of mud.  

As the tallest person I volunteered and tied a rope around me and went looking.  When I was about 6' deep I thought I found something and dove in, they pulled me back and I brought out a large sack with 3200 gp and some gems.  We decided that we should head back with the money and count our blessings.  Two of the players were young and that was enough for them.  

Next time we play, I will suggest that we look in on the trolls den to see if the corpse was discovered, but we go somewhere else, because the dungeon on that level will probably on high alert, since we defeated its guardian and eight goblins inside.  But if they want to go in, I will support them.  It is the kids game after all.  Trolls, they are tough, average 84hp and do 30 points of damage a round when they hit.  That mean that if the troll had hit the cleric, he would be dead, the fighter might have survived, and same with me the Ranger, e Mage and the bard would surely die.  Odds are we would have been in much more danger with more players getting killed and even maybe a party wipe.  But we didn't.

It opened my eyes on how the adventurers in my group might fare in a truly challenging encounter.  The module they are running in has a scary surprise at the end that I have nerfed to allow them all to not die.  I wonder if that was a good idea or not.  Maybe I should just give them the whole bloody encounter.  But then I think maybe not.  I will play it by ear.  Afterall the final encounter creature in 5e in the monster manual is significantly more dangerous than the 1e version.  I will play it by ear.